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why do my muscles ache when i have a cold

First of all, it is worth giving your muscles plenty of time to rest and relax. Trying to carry on as if you are perfectly fit and healthy will slow recovery as your body will not be able to put valuable energy into fighting off infection. As white blood cells are diverted from the muscles into fighting infection, your muscles are more susceptible to wear and tear. Thus, allowing your body to rest should prevent worsening of muscle pain. You may also find relief from warming or massaging your joints. Some people find a warm cloth around painful joints is comforting, others find that a rub of warm olive oil or peppermint oil soothes your muscles or joints.

It can also be very soothing and refreshing to have a warm bath, particularly with bath salts or essential oils. If you are looking to, a bath like this may help to lower your temperature.One of the main reasons that your body aches when you are sick, like with a cold, is that your body's immune system is producing plenty of Pin addition to the effects of all those viruses replicating in your cells killing them and leaving the area raw and exposed. P These antibodies also promote the release of which typically dilates (widens) blood vessel near an infection, this allows for more of the body's defences to get at the infection.

PThere are histamine receptors in blood vessels that cause them to dilate. P As these chemicals are released into your blood stream they can end up in your muscles or other body parts. Various body systems can have receptors to histamine that can then trigger a pain receptor. P In addition to histamine there are biochemicals called cytokines that are released when the body has an immune response that are also known to trigger a Pbiochemical pathway that can affect pain receptors. P Histamine and cytokines releases can change the perception of pain receptors in the body making them more sensitive to pain factors.

There are other factors that come into play also such as biochemicals called interleukins that relate to fever conditions and temperature increases, all of which can affect pain receptors in different ways, for example heat receptors. P The overall perception of pains and aches over the whole body can vary from person to person and there may be other combinations of psychological, Pphysiological or even nutritional factors that may influence this. AP suggests also that havingPsymptoms ofPsickness is an evolutionary mechanism to minimise sickness spreading within a group by making a person less mobile or motivated.

P Note to reddit TIL: ThePoriginal/older version of this page referred to muscle contraction and lactic acid as being a reason for muscle aches, this is not a major reason for such pain in a flu like situation. PThat information has been removed and the page updated since. References sources: (Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2001 March; 65(1): 131150. ) Types of pain receptors (, technical notes, Texas A M Univeristy, S. E Reichman) http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Pain